On Thursday, South Africa was clinical during the first Test as they beat the Malawi Queens 68-31 at the Ellis Park Arena. The Proteas are on the verge of a series win should they be able to back up the performance from Thursday, 

This was the perfect start to the new era under Jenny van Dyk as the coach, and they will take a lot of confidence going into the 2nd Test.

Elmeré van der Berg was the player of the match in the 1st Test. Photo: Netball SA

Van Dyk said while they are targeting an improvement, she is more than happy with the first outing. “Happy coach – definitely the way you want to start your campaign.” 

“I’m really proud of the girls and the team – they made us proud and they stuck to the game plan and they played with a lot of passion.

“We knew the first quarter was going to be tough and moving to the second quarter would still be competitive.”

“But we know we have the fitness and we know after half-time we still had a lot of lungs left and it showed on court and yes, there were one or two changes at the right time.

“We have quite a lot of confidence in all the different combinations that we’re running at the moment and they did us proud.”

The 2nd Test in Johannesburg gets underway on Saturday at 17:00.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek dg